In a lunch event today, Globe Telecom and Tata Communications announced that their new submarine cable system has been activated and carrying traffic to the Philippines.
Called the Tata Global Network – Intra Asia (TGN-IA), the cable system has been in plans since 2006 (even before the Taiwan earthquake that crippled internet in the Philippines).
The cable system now connects Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Japan to the Philippines. The cable networks were designed to avoid the earthquake zones around Taiwan and will offer a total capacity of 3.84 Terabits per second.
Globe’s initial capacity is 50Gbps which effectively doubles the total bandwidth capacity of the Philippines.
Well, what does this mean to regular consumers?
- Much less congestion in Globe’s network so subscribers are able to achieve their allocated bandwidth speeds.
- Reduced latency for business customers. This is good for VOIP and network gaming. The route between Singapore to Japan will now have the lowest latency in Asia at only 63ms.
- Alternative international cable network that will reduce incidents (like connectivity failures and congestions) caused by natural disasters like the Taiwan earthquake of 2006.
The cable landing site is now located at Ballesteros in Cagayan province, away from the usual landing sites in Nasugbu, Batangas. Globe Telecom spent $90 milllion for this project.


Currently our globe network connection sucks and it SUCKS BIGTIME.. Dunno what they’re doing in their system here in Quezon City but we have been experiencing frequent disconnections and very slow connection speeds almost rivaling dial up… If they really want good publicity and people to spread the word that they are good then they should fix these current problems. We have been subscribing for 2 years now and this has been happening for months. No peace of mind there. Planning to go back to PLDT or maybe try smart bro if they don’t get their network fixed.. Our neighbors on other networks have been having good connections here as I’ve seen.